iOS 5 for iPhone and iPad walkthrough

New to these giant software releases and wondering how to upgrade your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to iOS 5? Luckily iTunes makes the process of upgrading painless. The best part is once you're on iOS 5 you can start to receive OTA updates and you'll never have to fuss with cables and computers again.

For now though, where you're ready to update to iOS 5, here's what you need to do:

  1. Plug your current iPhone into your computer and open iTunes. Your phone should start to sync and backup automagically.
  2. If it doesn't start to sync automatically, click the Sync button in order to back up your device. (You can alternately right click your device name in the navigation bar and click back up as well. Either way will work just fine.)
  3. iTunes may prompt you that an update is available. If it does just click update after you've backed up your device (iTunes will also prompt you to back up if you haven't already.)
  4. If it doesn't, click Check for Update under the Version section.
  5. The new software will start to download and then install. Your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad will restart. Don't worry about it. Let iTunes do it's thing and update your device to iOS 5.
  6. Once it's done updating, iTunes should prompt you to do one of two things - set up as a new device or restore from a backup. Choose to restore from a backup and select the backup you just made.
  7. Once the restore is done your device will reboot. When iTunes detects it again it will start to sync back any apps and games your old iPhone had installed.

After you've done the initial manual update to iOS 5 you'll have the option to use iCloud backups in the future. Do it. It's free and it just works.

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